The Saints rule the NFC and other NFL thoughts

(1) If you didn’t already know, the Saints are officially the team to beat in the NFC after their dominating win against the formerly undefeated New York Giants. I know that the Vikings are also undefeated, but they have had to rely on a miraculous play from Brett Favre and a missed field goal by Baltimore to keep their record perfect. Conversely, the Saints have beaten all comers by at least 14 points and have yet to trail in any game so far. On Sunday, they jumped all over the G-Men early, leading 20-3 early in the 2nd quarter, and never took their foot off the accelerator until the final buzzer sounded on a resounding 21-point victory. The biggest difference between this edition of the Saints and those of recent vintage is that they don’t need to rely on Drew Brees to do everything. They have continued to win despite the fact that Brees entered Sunday riding a two-game streak with no touchdowns. Even more impressive is that their defense has improved to the point that they are contributing members as well instead of liabilities.

I don’t think there are any questions about the Saints’ offense. The face of the offense is Drew Brees, but they have a wealth of weapons at receiver and running back. On Sunday, the Saints became only the 4th team since 1970 to have seven different players score touchdowns. In the passing game, the Saints have tremendous possession receivers like Jeremy Shockey, Marques Colston and Lance Moore. In addition, they have the ability to strike deep with burners like Devery Henderson and Robert Meachem. On the ground, they can hit you with the game-changing speed of Reggie Bush or smack you in the mouth with the physical running of Pierre Thomas, Mike Bell and fullback Heath Evans. Most importantly, they have one of the premier triggermen in the business, who is able to get the football to the right guy at the right time. Brees completely carved up the Giants like a Halloween pumpkin throwing for 349 yards and four touchdowns. It was the second time already that Brees had thrown four or more touchdowns in a game. The most impressive part of Brees’ performances was that he was tremendous throwing the ball down the field. On throws of 10 yards or more, Brees completed 14 out of 18 attempts for 289 yards and three touchdowns. All of those big numbers added up to a perfect quarterback rating in those situations. This performance illustrates why the Saints are so difficult to defend. First of all, Brees is a deadly accurate quarterback with a quick release, so he doesn’t need a huge opening to get the ball to his talented stable of pass catchers. Secondly, the Saints pride themselves on continually pushing the ball down the field vertically. They are not a dink and dunk team like the Denver Broncos. The Saints want to move the ball down the field quickly, so that the opposing defense has no time to take a break. Against the Giants, the Saints scored in eight plays or less on five different occasions. Finally, the Saints are more balanced from a run/pass perspective than they have been at any point since Brees joined the team. Going into the game against New York, the Saints were 3rd overall in total offense (11th passing and 2nd running). This kind of balance is going to be a godsend in late November, December and January.

The more significant part of the Saints’ hot start is that the defense is finally pulling their own weight. The personnel is largely the same as the last couple of seasons, but the addition of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams seems to have changed the approach, attitude and execution completely. It looks like Sean Payton’s decision to take a $250,000 pay cut to help lure Williams to the bayou is paying off handsomely. The defense played tremendously against Eli Manning and the Giants limiting their dynamic running game to less than 90 yards and forcing 17 incompletions in 31 pass attempts. As a result of the Saints defensive pressure, the Giants were awful on third down only converting three times in 10 opportunities. In addition, the Saints seemed to have completely rattled Manning, who looked more like his father than he did the quarterback that was near the top of the QB rating standings after five weeks. Manning fumbled the ball after getting sacked by Roman Harper, which led to a Saints touchdown, and threw an interception after Ahmad Bradshaw fouled up the pass protection. Manning was so flummoxed after the pick that he publicly berated Bradshaw for not knowing his assignment. There is no better indication of a defense’s domination than to see the opposing team start to turn on each other. Overall, the Saints’ defense is gaining confidence and they appear to be the perfect ball-hawking complement to the high-octane offense led by Drew Brees. At this point in the season, the NFC goes through the Big Easy.

(2) The best game of week 6 was the shootout in the Metrodome featuring the Minnesota Vikings and the Baltimore Ravens. Heading in to the weekend, this match-up looked like one of the better games of the week and it went above and beyond my expectations. The Vikings looked to be in complete control of the game after taking a 27-10 lead early in the 4th quarter but the Ravens refused to go away and outscored the Vikings 21-3 over the next seven minutes to take a short-lived 31-30 lead. Unfortunately, Baltimore left too much time on the clock and Brett Favre pulled another miracle out of his bag of tricks and led the Vikings down the field for the game-winning field goal. I’m beginning to wonder if we are ever going to rid ourselves of Favre. He has already retired and unretired twice and he seems to be rejuvenated in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. If he continues to play at or near the level that he is currently playing, then I’m convinced that Favre will be playing football in 2010. I think that only two things would prevent Favre from donning an NFL jersey next season. The most obvious situation would be if he won the Super Bowl this season. I think that Favre would be content to go out on top after winning his second Super Bowl ring. The other situation would be if his performance completely tanked over the second half of the season and he finally realized that he is incapable of playing a 16-game season at his advanced age. The most likely scenario has us enduring another off-season of will he or won’t he rumors emanating from rural Mississippi.

Regardless of what Favre decides to do in 2010, he continues to demonstrate that he is still capable of playing great football at the age of 40. As most people predicted, he has been the number one difference-maker for the talented Minnesota Vikings. Without Favre, Minnesota would have lost against the Ravens and they definitely would not have beaten the San Francisco 49ers. On Sunday, he led the offense to 426 total yards against one of the better defenses in the NFL and he personally contributed 278 yards passing and three touchdowns. Through three plus quarters, the Vikings looked like the superior team but they had to withstand a furious rally from the Ravens. It almost seemed like the Minnesota defense got complacent after they had built a 17-point lead. After only allowing 226 total yards and 10 points through the first three quarters, the Vikings suddenly allowed the Ravens to move up and down the field and rack up 222 yards and 21 points in the fourth quarter alone. In the end, they were saved again by Favre and his fourth quarter heroics. Favre hit Sidney Rice with a 58-yard completion to set-up the game-winning field from Ryan Longwell. It was the 41st time in Favre’s career that he lead a 4th quarter or overtime game-winning drive, which is the most among active signal callers.

The Ravens should get an A for effort but they have been making too many mistakes over the last three weeks. The last couple of weeks have seen them commit too many costly penalties and turn the ball over too many times. Against the Vikings, they were undermined by an offense that didn’t get started until the fourth quarter and a defense that didn’t do a very good job of holding the fort until the offense awakened. First of all, the offense was horrendous in the first half. They punted the ball five times and only managed 136 yards of total offense and three points. They didn’t start the second half much better as they only produced 80 yards and seven points on three drives in the third quarter. By the time they got possession of the ball with just over 10 minutes left in the game, they were staring directly into a 17 point deficit. It is a credit to them that they were able to nearly steal the victory, but a little better production earlier in the game might have made things easier at the end. As bad as the offense was early, the defense was the bigger culprit. The Ravens are built for defense. They are supposed to be a dominating defensive unit. It is supposedly their calling card. They were completely steamrolled by the Vikings, especially in the second half. After forcing the Vikings to punt on four consecutive possessions to end the first half, the Ravens allowed Minnesota to score on four consecutive possessions to start the second half. The only thing that kept Baltimore in the game was that they bent but didn’t break holding the Vikings to only one touchdown in those four possessions. More shocking is the fact that they allowed their second consecutive 100-yard rusher after not allowing such an effort since 2006. This Ravens team is a hard one to figure out. On paper, they appear to be one of the most balanced teams in the NFL, but they find themselves 3-3 after six weeks riding a three-game losing streak. In my mind, their schizophrenic play boils down to the fact that they are immature on offense and overrated on defense.

(3) After losing to the previously winless Chiefs, the end of the Jim Zorn era in Washington, D.C. is coming soon. It is no longer a question of if but when. When Zorn was hired to be the head coach of the Redskins, it was expected that he would bring a new dynamic to the offensive side of the football. Rather than see an explosion from the offense, the Redskins have struggled mightily to put points on the board no matter who they are playing. After finishing 2008 28th in the league in points per game (16.6 pts/gm), the Skins are actually on pace to score fewer points in 2009 (14.6 pts/gm). In the Zorn era, the Skins have scored 20 points or less in 16 of the 22 games. The numbers are not only startling, but they demonstrate that progress is not being made. For all his reputation as a quarterback guru, Jason Campbell is as big of a mess in 2009 as he was when Zorn inherited him back at the start of the 2008 season. In my opinion, Campbell is damaged goods and no coach is going to be able to turn him into a viable NFL quarterback. I believe he had four offensive coordinators in four seasons at Auburn and he has suffered through a revolving door of offensive coaches during his stint in Washington as well. He has been coached by so many different people that he thinks that up is down and right is left. I’m not absolving Zorn of blame; I just think that Campbell was fouled up long before Zorn took the head coaching position.

Nevertheless, the Redskins are in a terrible offensive funk right now. They have had one of the easier schedules in the NFL and they only have a 2-4 record to show for it. They have already lost to the Lions, Panthers and Chiefs and they nearly lost to the Rams and Buccaneers as well. I think they hit a low point on Sunday against the Chiefs. They only managed seven first downs for the entire game. They were shut out in the first half and only scored six points in the second half. They had more three-and-outs (7 on the day) than they had points. They benched Campbell at halftime in a move that reeked of desperation from Zorn and his coaching staff. I know that Campbell struggled in the first half, but if they really thought Todd Collins gave them a better chance to win then the situation is far worse in Washington than I ever imagined. The situation got even weirder after the game as Zorn was informed by the front office that he would be relieved of his play calling duties. It has to be the ultimate indignity for an offensive coach, who was hired to call plays and mentor quarterbacks, to lose his control over the play calling. I believe that this is the first step in the process of firing Zorn either in mid-season or at the end of the season. The timing of when the other shoe will fall totally depends on how the Skins play through the next few weeks.

(4) The Redskins should definitely be embarrassed about their lackluster performance against the Chiefs, but they have plenty of company. Two other teams that should feel ashamed about the way that they played on Sunday are the Philadelphia Eagles and Tennessee Titans. The Eagles should hang their heads in shame because they lost to one of the worst, most poorly operated franchises in the NFL. The Titans should feel awful because they were treated like rag dolls by the New England Patriots. I’m not really sure which performance was worse. Is it more shameful to lose to a team that has lost 75% of its games since 2002 or to lose to a model franchise 59-0? I don’t really care to know the answer because both teams played with no emotion, no intensity and no toughness.

It is amazing to me that the high-flying Eagles allowed the Raiders to take the fight to them. In addition, the Eagles are a veteran team that shouldn’t fall victim to the classic trap game, where they are looking past their opponent. Regardless, it was clear that the Eagles felt like they could beat the Raiders by merely stepping on to the turf at McAfee Coliseum. In the immortal words of somebody, “That is why we play the games.” The Raiders came out aggressive on defense and made just enough plays on offense to shock Philadelphia. They sacked Donovan McNabb six times on the day and forced the Eagles’ offense to misfire on 14 out of 16 third down opportunities. The biggest surprise is that Raiders’ defense completely took McNabb out of his normal game and caused him to complete only 48% of his attempts. In classic Andy Reid form, the Eagles completely abandoned the run, which put even more pressure on McNabb to save the day. Instead, the Raiders harassed McNabb all day long and sacked him six times. In addition, the Eagles decided to not incorporate the Wildcat formation at all. I’m wondering what kind of game it will take for Andy Reid to use Michael Vick. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to get Vick involved to keep the pressure off the quarterback and force the Raiders to defend and control the pocket. The biggest indignity for the Eagles was that they entered the game with the second-highest points per game average in the NFL and the finished the game as the first team in three years to fail to score a touchdown against Oakland. It wasn’t like the Raiders played a tremendous game. The Eagles just failed to capitalize on a plethora of opportunities to win the game, including missing two field goals. The Eagles need to take an in-depth look at themselves to see how they can avoid a similar let-down in the future. I think that the Eagles are a border-line play-off team as long as they resolve the offensive problems that surfaced in the Bay Area.

The Titans played one of the worst football games that I have ever seen against the Patriots. New England was so superior that it appeared that they were playing against air. The margin of victory tied for the sixth largest rout in NFL history and it established a new Titans’ record for the worst loss in franchise history. The previous record was 54 points set in 1989 when the Oilers lost to Cincinnati, 61-7. Frankly, this game featured records being set all over the place. New England set franchise records for points and total yards (619) in a single game. Tom Brady set an NFL record with five touchdown passes in a single quarter with his virtuoso performance in the second quarter. He also tied his own franchise record with six touchdown passes in a single game and joined four other quarterbacks (Peyton Manning, Charley Johnson, Y.A. Tittle and George Blanda) who, since 1960, have thrown six touchdown passes in a game twice. Finally, the Patriots posted the largest shutout in the NFL since December 4, 1976, when the Rams beat the Falcons by the same margin. Luckily, for the Titans, the Patriots narrowly missed the largest margin of victory since the NFL began in 1920 (66 points).

The Patriots were flawless and the Titans were hapless. They only managed nine first downs and 186 total yards. They turned the ball over five times and only converted 20% of their third down situations. In one 17-play stretch in the second quarter, the Titans gave up three scoring passes, lost two fumbles and threw an interception. The Titans were pretty horrible across the board, but the performance from Kerry Collins sticks out like a sore thumb. After watching Derek Anderson stink up the joint last week in Buffalo, Collins decided to set the bar for awful quarterbacking so low that Verne Troyer wouldn’t even be able to do the limbo underneath it. Collins accomplished the unthinkable when he completed only two passes for negative seven yards. Collins actually posted a quarterback rating of 4.9, which was worse than his 7.1 QB rating in the 2001 Super Bowl loss to the Ravens. Collins’ performance was so bad that it made Vince Young’s brief appearance (0-2 with an interception) look Hall of Fame worthy. In my opinion, the Titans completely missed the boat on Collins. He was so effective last season that the Titans were duped into thinking he could replicate his 2008 numbers. Through six games, Collins is completing less than 55% of his attempts and he has already thrown more interceptions than he threw all of last season. When players near the end of their careers, they sometimes gradually deteriorate or they sometimes collapse in the blink of an eye. In my opinion, we are witnessing Collins’ career nose-diving off the side of the Grand Canyon. I don’t think it is going to be much better, but it is time to give Vince Young another chance to be the franchise quarterback that Titans’ fans thought they had when he was drafted in the first round.

(5) After getting manhandled by the Arizona Cardinals, the Seahawks’ playoff aspirations have been officially extinguished. Despite the fact that they thoroughly dominated the Jaguars last week, the Hawks are not a good football team right now. They possibly played one of the worst football games in the history of the franchise against the Cardinals. They only produced 128 yards of total offense, which included setting a new franchise low for yards rushing in a game (14 yards) and tying the second worst performance in team history in terms of time of possession (17:10). Their crew of third and fourth-stringers on the offensive line were overrun by the athletic front seven of the Cardinals that sacked Matt Hasselbeck five times and didn’t allow the Seahawks to convert on any of their third down attempts. The situation got so dire that Cardinals’ defensive lineman Darnell Dockett claimed that Hasselbeck stopped looking for his wide receivers because he was under so much duress. Dockett stated that Hasselbeck was “bailing out” against the onslaught and that the Seahawks’ offensive line “got whupped.” Based on the results of the game, I can’t say that I disagree with him. It is clear that the Hawks have a huge problem on the offensive line. They are not going to be successful with the likes of Steve Vallos, Kyle Williams and Damien McIntosh playing. It doesn’t look like things will get better any time soon because Walter Jones continues to be a huge question mark for the rest of the season and Rob Sims and Sean Locklear continue to be hurt. It is clear that the one-cut and go philosophy of the zone blocking scheme has failed miserably. I do believe that it will eventually improve, but the 2009 season is lost due to the significant turnover on the offensive line.

The other issue for the Seahawks is that they are ill-equipped defensively to match-up with Kurt Warner and his angular corps of wide receivers. I can’t think of another NFL team that presents such a match-up headache for the Seahawks’ defense. The smallish Seahawks defensive backs are incapable of making plays against the tall, talented receivers from the Cardinals. The height deficiencies that we have at cornerback were on full display when Larry Fitzgerald out-jumped a Seahawks defender for two-yard touchdown in the first quarter ad when Steve Breaston wrestled the ball away from Ken Lucas for a 16-yard touchdown in the third quarter. In addition, the Hawks defense didn’t generate consistent pressure on Kurt Warner. Warner was sacked twice and turned the ball over twice but he still completed 32 out 41 attempts and posted a 100.8 quarterback rating. Everyone in the NFL knows that you cannot allow Warner time in the pocket because he will absolutely eat your secondary for dinner. Other teams might be able to survive because they have taller, more physical defensive backs, but the Hawks just expose their undermanned secondary even more when they don’t apply the pressure.

The biggest concern for me was that the Seahawks did not appear ready for the biggest game of their season. They made a ton of mistakes and they allowed the Cardinals to get a stranglehold on the game early. Kurt Warner and the Cardinals offense surgically dissected the Seahawks on a 15-play, 80-yard opening touchdown drive that consumed over 10 minutes in the first quarter. The Seahawks defense was not prepared for the dink and dunk strategy from the Cardinals and, as a result, they were unable to get off the field. This is certainly not the first time that the Hawks have struggled to get to the bench, but they generally perform better in this area of the game at home. After giving up the touchdown, the Hawks reacted poorly to the Neil Rackers’ pooch kick, which the Cardinals recovered at the 23-yard line. Following the recovery, the Cardinals struck again and the Hawks found themselves trailing 14-0 before they had even touched the ball on offense. It wasn’t like their offense was up to the challenge anyhow because Hasselbeck was sacked on their third offensive play, fumbled and ball was recovered by the Cardinals at the Seattle 23-yard line. It was 17-0 before the Seahawks knew what had hit them. The game only got worse from there. It was very clear that the Hawks don’t belong on the same field as the Cardinals. It is also clear that the gulf between the two teams is wider than the Atlantic Ocean. It is only October and the Hawks season is over once again.